books

the.effing.librarian offers some great commentary about the Google Books Settlement ruling and how Google becoming evil (at least in the eyes of the American public) could be the best thing for open and free access to information.

Judge Chin’s ruling on the settlement between Google and authors regarding the Google Books project made news this week. Here’s some reaction from libraries and library organizations participating in this project.

As followers of my Twitter feed or Facebook page know I have been reading Siva Vaidhyanathan’s book The Googlization of Everything which has an entire chapter dedicated to a critical analysis of the Google Books project that aims to scan books from the world’s foremost libraries and make them available in digital form, copyright be damned. Add to this the fact that a ruling was announced on the settlement between some large publishing groups and Google (long story short the settlement is moot), it has been an interesting and synchronous week for me. I’ll post more once I have the chance to read through the backlog of chatter on the matter and finish Siva’s book!